Lock up/Freeze Only When Gaming

[Saviour]

Hello guys, have a problem with my new build I was hoping I could get some help with.
I completed my build a week ago and have been having freezing issues/locking up of the system.

First off here are the specs.

- Crosshair V Formula Z motherboard
- AMD FX 8350 Black Edition CPU
- 32GB G Skill Trident X 2400MHz RAM (4x8gb as per manual)
- Windows 8 Pro 64bit OS
- OCZ Fatality 1000w PSU
- ASUS GTX 690 Graphics Card
- Samsung 840pro 256GB ssd, OS drive. Samsung 830 512GB ssd, secondary drive.
- ASUS Xonar Essence STX sound card

The system is fully watercooled as is the gtx 690 with a heatkiller waterblock.

So after installing the OS and all drivers everything seemed fine, no problems at all. After I started gaming on steam, a few days later I was getting random freezing/locking up of games. This would happen after 5 mins/5 hours or never, it was totally random, when it happened you couldn't do anything,
It just froze on the game screen, ctrl alt del done nothing, even if I left it for hours it'll still be sitting on the same frozen game screen. Only way out was a hard reset. I noticed that the mobo was throwing up q code 30 40 sometimes 66. Updated drivers and bios chipsets etc and things seemed to be ok for a few days but then started to get freezing lockups on windows screen as well as gaming so thought balls to this, formatted and done a clean install of os and I meticulously updated everything. I'm on the most recent bios now, updated chipset drivers. Installed most recent gpu drivers, following a guide online to do it cleanly. The system is not overclocked, only thing I've changed on the bios is the ram timings as per manual, and the mobo loves this, booting up AA q-code everytime. I've installed all windows updates, updated the firmware on SSD drives. I ran furmark benchmarking software to test gpu, scored a 7k plus with a gpu peak temp of 41 (is this too low, maybe something wrong?). It seems that now I don't lockup in windows anymore but in games it's a lottery, could have a fine session, of freezes after 5mins. Maybe some of you more knowledgable people out there could lend me some words of wisdom.

I know there's prob loads of stuff I could try to do to look for a fault, like using
CPU-z and gpu progs, but I don't know what to look for. Thanks for taking the time to read my post and look forward to hearing your responses.

[Zka17]

Welcome, Saviour, to the ROG Forum! 🙂

32GB at 2400MHZ is really hard on your CPU... specially with a TridentX kit... - that was not designed for the AMD platforms...

What I would try to do is to run memtest86+ at BIOS deafault settings (after hitting F5)... then set the values from the stickers on the modules manually and run memtest86+ again... - if any of those shows problems, your RAM is most likely incompatible with that system...

Here is a guide to memtest86+: http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?19615-Memtest-User-Guide-For-ROG-Motherboards&country=&stat...

[Saviour]

Hello

Thanks so much for your prompt reply. I shall give this a go and report back. I hope it's not the memory, it's expensive and it would
be beyond me why asus would put it in the manual as being compatible if its not. Do you think plugging in the additional 12v eatx by the memory
will help, as I read somewhere is gives extra juice to the ram.

[Zka17]

Sorry, I didn't knew that TridentX is on the QVL... strange... but if they say that it should work...

With that amount of memory, definitely plug in all the power connectors!

[Saviour]

Hehe yeah it's in the table in the mobo manual. Right ill plug that in and run memtest and report back, thank you for your help, fingers crossed.

[Zka17]

No problem, mate! :cool:

[Saviour]

Right, I'm running memtest86 as we speak, 12mi
ns elapsed and so far 0 errors, however I noticed it says.

CPUs found 8
CPUs started 8
CPUs active 1

Is this normal?

[KPRage]

Hey Saviour.. Welcome to ROG... It must be the Threads mate.. However, I am not fully 100% sure of it.. Before you run MemTest, make sure you have followed every instructions mentioned in the guide, to the dot.. What do you use your system for BTW (by-the-way)? 🙂

Cheers,
KP

[Saviour]

Hi KP, thanks for the message. I followed the memtest guide to the letter, it came up with 0 errors, however when I exited, windows wouldn't boot up 😞
Came up blue screen with ntoskrnl.exe error message, in advanced option is says something about MEMORY_MANAGEMENT?? cleared CMOS and it booted to windows, but it didn't recognise my audio device??
Said no audio device connected, reinstalled drivers and still nothing but in device manager ur says my card is there and driver up to date 😮
I'm so baffled right now. Fresh installing windows again grrr. I use my system for gaming and video/photo editing :).....when it works xD

[Chino]

Saviour wrote:
Hello

Thanks so much for your prompt reply. I shall give this a go and report back. I hope it's not the memory, it's expensive and it would
be beyond me why asus would put it in the manual as being compatible if its not. Do you think plugging in the additional 12v eatx by the memory
will help, as I read somewhere is gives extra juice to the ram.

Zka17 wrote:
Sorry, I didn't knew that TridentX is on the QVL... strange... but if they say that it should work...

With that amount of memory, definitely plug in all the power connectors!

There is a common misconception about the QVL. We must remember that the QVL just means that the memory was tested on the motherboard and no problems were found. Modern CPUs have the IMC (Integrated Memory Controller) on the CPU itself which dictates if you can do 2400MHz or not. It's two different subjects you see. The fact that the kit is on the QVL doesn't mean that your CPU IMC can handle the kit. 😉

Saviour, try running your RAM at default speed (1333MHz) and see if the lock ups/freezes go away.